


Shungopavi

by JoAsakura



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-19
Updated: 2008-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-03 04:46:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoAsakura/pseuds/JoAsakura





	Shungopavi

Inside the sun-baked adobe house, a tiny old woman with a face like a dried apple doll's and iron-grey hair was baking piki bread and humming to herself. She wore a flowered housedress and a large silver and turquoise necklace that gleamed in the dusty light.

When the tall man- clad in ubiquitous jeans and a denim shirt, cowboy hat slung low over his eyes, appeared in her doorway, she wasn't surprised. She merely looked up at him and said "Come in and sit down. You're just in time for lunch."

The cobwebs hanging from the rafters shuddered as he strode in. He pulled off the hat and sat down at her little table, shaking out wheat-gold hair. "It seems like I'm always just in time for lunch." Alfred said with a small smile.

"Funny, that." The old woman said, fishing a Dr Pepper out of her small icebox. "You never call, you never write, you only show up when you have a problem." She chided, setting the bottle in front of him and fixing him with bright eyes.

"I'm sorry." Alfred said, watching condensation bead on the bottle. "I went to go visit Arthur."

She had gone back to making her bread, thin almost-crepes of ashy blue corn. "And?"

"I was thinking about the Round Table..." Alfred started, then fell silent as she plonked a plastic bowl of green chili in front of him, along with a stack of the piki bread.

"I know where you're going with this, Alfred." She said, hauling herself up into the seat opposite him and glaring at him. "You DO remember what you are, don't you?"

"Yes." He said, digging a spoon into the chili and stirring it. "A Nation is born when a people look out at the land and say 'yes. this is us. this is our home.' Right?"

"Hng. Poetic." She muttered, tapping a cigarette out of a rumpled package. "I know. You're not as stupid as people think you are." She laughed as she took a drag. "But you're not human, Alfred. You can't rule yourself."

He crumpled before her, setting his glasses down on the worn formica with a soft click. "Yeah. I know. But we live for so long and we.. I..we do such things.." He sighed, dipping the bread into the chili and gnawing on it in silence. "I'm supposed t'be a hero."

"You like your new boss, right?" She said from behind a haze of smoke, and the Nation nodded. "Then I'll tell you what you can do for him and for your people."

Eyes like the huge bowl of sky that rose over the second mesa glanced up at her. "Shoot."

"Drag your skeletons out of the closet. Your monsters from under the bed. Drag them out into the truth of the light."

Alfred winced. "That sounds... Painful."

"Of course it is. But if you take those demons and say 'these things that were done in my name are not me. They're not who I am, who I will be. I am better than that.' and take those things and you remember their faces, you don't let them happen again. And even though it hurts, it will make the hearts and souls of your people stronger." She took another long drag of her cigarette as Alfred ate.

"When you dress your skeletons up in cartoon clothes and put a child's plastic masks over your monsters and pretend they don't exist, the only thing that gets stronger are ignorance and weakness." She finished.

He smiled faintly at her and pushed the now-empty bowl aside. "I guess I should get back to Washington. There's alot of work to do." He said before leaning over the table to press a kiss to her wrinkled forehead. "Thank you, grandma."

"Shoo, shoo." She swatted him off and watched as he vanished into the golden noonday haze.

"You still have faith in him, Spider?" An old man, who hadn't been there a moment before, scowled at the open door.

"Oh, hush, Coyote, you old fool." She said, clearing the plates. "You know as well as I do that things are always turning."


End file.
